'We Are Headed For War', 6.3 Quake In Japan, Russia Had To Call U.S. Twice To Stop Syria Strike

We Are Headed For War

Former Assistant Treasury Secretary (in the Reagan Administration) Dr. Paul Craig Roberts has a stark warning for the world. Dr. Roberts says, “We changed our nuclear doctrine.  It used to be we used nuclear weapons only in retaliation.  There was no first use, but the George W. Bush regime, the Neocons, changed our nuclear doctrine.  It’s now a preemptive first strike.  So, this tells both the Russians and Chinese they could get a preemptive first strike.  Then, we tell the Russians we are putting missiles right on your border.  You won’t have two minutes’ notice.  They can’t accept that.  It’s too much risk from a crazy country (U.S.) that won’t negotiate with them. . . . So, we’re headed for war. I think the only thing that would block it is if one or two of the European governments realize that they have nothing whatsoever to gain with a conflict with Russia. . . . The only thing they could do to prevent a nuclear war is to pull out of NATO.”

Dr. Roberts also contends, “The tensions now between the United States and Russia are higher than they ever were during the cold war. For this reason, it is very dangerous.  It is dangerous for another reason.  In all of my life, every President worked to reduce tensions with Russia.  Kennedy worked with Khrushchev to defuse the Cuban missile crisis, and part of the deal was Kennedy pulled American missiles out of Turkey.  We know Richard Nixon worked . . . very hard to get a strategic arms limitation treaty. . . . Now, we have NATO right on Russia’s border.  This is a massive violation of commitments that the United States made.  We now have extremely high amounts of tensions, and I think with this recent attack by the United States on Syrian troops, it has made it perfectly clear to the Russian government that diplomacy is useless, and they cannot reach a diplomatic understanding with the United States.  Therefore, we have reached the point where force confronts force.”

Why are American so in the dark about the dire global risks of nuclear war? Dr. Roberts, who is an award winning journalist and former editor and columnist at the Wall Street Journal, says, “There are no longer any independent networks.  ABC, NBC and CBS are all cogs in huge conglomerates.  The media companies are not run by journalists.  They are run by former government officials and corporate advertising executives who have no interest whatsoever in telling the truth. . . . So, essentially, there is no longer any media.  It’s a ministry of propaganda.”

On the economy, with around 94 million people out of the workforce and the near record low Labor Force Participation rate, Dr. Roberts says, “The Labor Force Participation rate never falls during a recovery. It rises because people are entering the labor force to take advantage of the strong economy and jobs.  So, there isn’t any economy.  There is a house of cards that is held together by central bank money creation.  The money flows into financial assets.  That’s what keeps the stock market up, and it flows into bonds, which is why we have essentially 0% interest rates. . . . So, the economy is essentially a hoax.”

6.3 magnitude earthquake shakes southern Japan

 A magnitude 6.3 earthquake struck early Wednesday in the sparsely populated Izu Islands southeast of Japan's main island of Honshu, the Japan Meteorological Agency reported. The U.S. Geological Survey said the quake was 6.1 and hit around 1:21 a.m. in Japan with its epicenter about 382 miles south-southeast of Tokyo at a depth of 6.2 miles. The Japan Meteorological Agency said although there might be slight sea-level changes in coastal regions, the earthquake has caused no damage to Japan. No tsunami warnings were issued by the Pacific Tsunami Warning Center. In April, earthquakes of 6.2 and 7.0 hit Japan on back-to-back days on the southern island of Kyushu. On Tuesday,

Russia Had to Call U.S. Twice to Stop Syria Airstrike

On Saturday, about 30 minutes after precision bombs from an armada of American, British, Danish, and Australian warplanes began smashing into a large group of Islamic State fighters gathered near Deir el-Zour, Syria, the phone rang.

But there was a problem. No one at the operations center for the U.S.-led coalition could figure out what the Russian officer on the other end of the line was on about.

So he hung up, and called back. 

By time the Russian officer found his designated contact — who was away from his desk — and explained that the coalition was actually hitting a Syrian army unit, “a good amount of strikes” had already taken place, U.S. Central Command spokesman Col. John Thomas told reporters at the Pentagon Tuesday.

U.S. commanders called off the strike within minutes, but the damage had been done. The incident Saturday killed an estimated 60 Syrian soldiers in what was the coalition’s first inadvertent attack on Syrian troops in the two-year air war. But it came at a tense time, as the week-long ceasefire brokered by the United States and Russia was less than 48 hours from completion.

Then all hell broke loose. During those 48 hours, the Russian foreign ministry accused the Pentagon of providing direct support for ISIS; the Syrian military broke the ceasefire; barrel bombs began falling again on Aleppo; and Syrian, and possibly Russian, aircraft obliterated a U.N. aid convoy near Aleppo, killing 12 aid workers and destroying about 20 trucks.

The United States had been planning the strike for two to three days, with the target under surveillance during that time, Thomas said Tuesday. Some reports have emerged that the Syrians weren’t wearing uniforms, and weren’t in the place that the coalition expected them to be, but defense officials wouldn’t comment on the particulars. 

The U.S. military is now investigating the strike on the Syrian troops, and there is no timeline for its conclusion, U.S. defense officials said. 

With the ceasefire in tatters, so too are any plans for the Americans and Russians to begin sharing operational information on ISIS and Jabhat Fateh al Sham (formerly known as Nusra Front, al Qaeda’s franchise in Syria) targets. 

“We don’t move forward until the diplomats tell us to do that,” Thomas said, adding, “we’re waiting to see what we’re asked to do, but I don’t think it’s a situation where we are anticipating any great progress any time soon.”

Speaking at a conference in Washington Tuesday, another top U.S. military official said that any cooperation with the Russians is off, at least for the time being. Gen. Herbert “Hawk” Carlisle, head of the Air Combat Command, told reporters that “for the foreseeable future … we will be in deconfliction mode and not in the joint operations” mode with the Russians.